


Apart

by HitherDither



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gem Shattering, Gen, Spoilers, Steven Universe Future, canon-compliant temporary character death, mental crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28383462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HitherDither/pseuds/HitherDither
Summary: Jasper just has to pull herself back together, right?
Kudos: 5





	Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Suddenly finding yourself unable to reform when you should be able to must be terrifying. Just some brain ramblings about Jasper's state of mind after Steven issues his ultimate beat down, and before he brings her back.
> 
> A little spoilery for Future so I tagged that.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she came to. Or as much as it was possible to do so in the state. Jasper couldn't see or hear, and the lack of almost all sensation meant that she'd experienced a traumatic impact.

Somewhere very distant were the other parts of her body. In her mind she could feel their presence, but they had been separated from her. Even in this detached state, she could feebly twitch her far-off fingers and toes, feel the heavy stillness of her chest, and even a dormant power in her numb and floating muscles.

She'd been defeated, albeit temporarily. A small setback. This was not a place she enjoyed being, and it made her want to boil over with anger, but her current situation made it impossible to brood about it. If she wanted to get anything done she'd have to wait, be calm, and be precise.

With all the patient force of a well trained fighter, she willed her mind to empty of everything except the far flung mental tether to the pieces of her physical form. Fully visualizing herself, she started to pull her limbs closer. It was if they were adrift in a sea, and her consciousness was each wave wafting them just a little closer with every pass.

Absolute focus was necessary for this task. It seemed to be taking ages, but Jasper kept control over her thoughts. Pull, rest, pull, rest, she repeated her efforts to draw herself together and connect the severed threads of her being. When she was restored she'd be able to fight back with her true strength-

Too long, it was taking too long. Her concentration was suddenly wavering, panic edging into her thoughts. It had never taken this long to reform after her body had dissipated from injury. All her parts were still there, but they weren't getting any closer. Still present, still adhered in some ethereal form, but she couldn't make them connect.

It was as if the pieces of herself had been flung into different compartments, walled off in different dimensions, touching together only in the far off places in her consciousness.

_Shattered_.

She wanted to scream, wanted to slam her fists, wanted to expunge the chaos that should be rising in her chest. But those parts weren't there, and there were no sounds, and there were no gestures she could make to express the dire emotions that were trying to flood into her mind.

Even that seemed too far away, now. Her own thoughts piled upon themselves, trying to become a tower to break through that cottony, suffocating sensation. The sensation of distance, of floating away, of disappearing.

All of her internal monologue broke down in pieces, quieting to a murmur that tried feebly to rise again and again, each peak reaching shorter than the last, to keep together. Soon even that evened out into nothing but a paralyzed, barely conscious speck. Some small dot that was just dimly, barely aware that it existed, and that other small and distant dust motes were trying to cry out to it.

This place that she had brought other gems to without mercy. This is where Jasper had found and then had forgotten herself.


End file.
